It is a matter of immense pride that the great poet and philosopher who wrote our country’s national anthem and who was the first Indian to be honoured with the Nobel prize for literature in 1913 had a deep and meaningful relationship with this hill region.
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s love for the Himalayas, especially the Kumaon region, is well-known.
His birth anniversary (May 7), it would be an apt occasion to reiterate his sentimental association with the hills and dales of Kumaon. He came back to these hills again and again.
In fact, Tagore wrote some verses of his famous work “Gitanjali” which brought him the Nobel prize, while he was in Kumaon. And it was here that the idea of Visva Bharati first came to his mind.
It is believed that he had even thought of setting up an ashram in the Himalayas. His last holiday in Kumaon was in Almora, four years before his death in 1941.
In the summer of 1937, Tagore spent a very creative summer at Almora where he stayed at a bungalow which is now known as Tagore House or Tagore Bhavan, located in the cantonment area of Almora. It now houses the cantonment board office.
In May and June 1937, Tagore stayed here and wrote his poems “Sejuti”, “Akaash Pradeep” and “Nobojaatok” besides his book on Science “Bishwa Porichoy”.
A bronze inscription which has the face of the great poet and philosopher can be seen at Tagore House.
However, this was not Gurudev’s first visit to Kumaon. The summer of the year 1903 saw him as a grief-stricken father, with two of his children, trying to find solace in the serene Kumaon.
His wife Mrinalini had passed away in 1902 and whose twelve year daughter Renuka had contracted tuberculosis.
In early May in 1903, he had left for the Kumoan hills with Renuka and his younger son, Samindranath. He stayed in Ramgarh near Naini Tal till August and took the two children back to Calcutta. In mid-September 1903, Renuka died. later, even Sami died (1907).
Gurudev came to the hills of Kumaon again in early May in the year 1914 and remained there till June. He was at Ramgarh, in a cottage amid apple orchards and pines from where one gets a breathtaking panoramic view of the Himalayas from Chaukhamba to the Nepal Himalayan ranges.
The place left him spell- bound and became a great favourite with him. The house where Gurudev lived at Ramgarh was on a high ridge and is now known as “Tagore Top”. It is situated at a height of 8,500 feet above sea level. Gurudev wrote some verses of the classic “Gitanjali” here.
The influence of Tagore on the culture and literature of Kumaon can also be seen as a result of his several visits to the hill region and also due to the fact that some of the writers of those days visited or studied at Santiniketan.
The great writer from Kumaon, Gaura Pant Shivani, along with her older siblings, was sent to Santiniketan and studied there for almost a decade until she graduated in 1943.
She was strongly influenced by Rabindranath Tagore and the Bengali culture and this is evident in her works like Krishnakali. When Tagore came to Almora, he would always visit Shivani’s family home.
Many of the Kumaoni stories and also the works of Mrinal Pandey and Ira Pandey, daughters of Shivani, have a flavour which is reminiscent of Bengali culture and literature.
The simplicity of lifestyle and the highly idealistic thinking, along with the love for traveling can be seen in Bengali and Kumaoni cultures and works of writing. Shivani’s women characters remind one of those in Tagore’s and Sarat Chandra’s novels.
Seventy eight years have gone by. But the memories of Tagore’s last stay in Almora, in May and June, remain etched clearly on the hills of Kumaon.